Compare / PolyAI
Lance vs PolyAI
Side-by-side comparison of Lance and PolyAI for hotels: property-level front desk versus enterprise contact-center voice AI, reservations and payments, work orders, security and pricing, with sources and dates.
The short answer
Choose Lance if you want a property-level AI front desk that answers on your PBX and turns calls into logged operational work, deployed in days alongside the systems you already run. Choose PolyAI if you are an enterprise operator or central-reservations organisation automating very high call volumes, including taking payments over the phone, across many sites through a contact-center-grade deployment.
PolyAI (founded 2017, UK) builds enterprise conversational voice assistants; in hospitality it takes room reservations with payment over the phone, initiates housekeeping requests, resolves billing questions and routes calls, at contact-center scale.
Side by side
| Criterion | Lance | PolyAI voice assistants |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | A property-level AI front desk plus the operations platform behind it (boards, tasks, PM, scheduling) | Enterprise voice assistants for customer-service call volumes, scaling “across hundreds of sites” |
| Works on your existing PBX | Yes. Connects over a SIP trunk alongside your PBX; transfers ring existing phones and extensions with a front-desk fallback; one switch turns it off | Routes calls “to anyone in your staff directory”; deployment model is contact-center/telephony-platform oriented; property-PBX specifics not stated publicly |
| Where answers come from | Grounded in the hotel's own FAQ library with confidence thresholds; unanswered questions are captured and queued for review, and answers go live on the next call | “Answer site-specific and brand-level FAQs”; authoring workflow not stated publicly |
| Calls become work orders | Yes. Housekeeping and maintenance requests become work orders with a room, owner and status while the guest is on the line, on the same platform that runs boards, tasks, PM and scheduling | Can “initiate housekeeping requests”; whether they are tracked as work orders is not stated publicly |
| Reservations and payments | Transfers reservation calls with context; group inquiries captured with human-approved replies; no cardholder data handled | Takes room reservations and “seamlessly process[es] payments over the phone”; Golden Nugget automates 34% of reservation-line calls |
| Languages | 99+ languages, one voice, automatic language detection | “Dozens of languages” per PolyAI's materials; exact count not stated |
| Operations beyond the call | The same platform runs housekeeping boards, task management, preventive maintenance and AI labor scheduling | Voice-focused; hotel operations tooling is not part of the product |
| Security | SOC 2 audited; per-hotel data isolation; customer data never trains foundation models; no cardholder data handled | ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, GDPR stated |
| Typical buyer | A hotel, owner or management group deploying property by property | Enterprise chains, casinos/resorts and central reservations organisations |
| Pricing | Subscription per hotel, scoped to the products in use; quote via demo | “Pricing available by request”; not public |
Who each is for
Choose Lance if
Individual properties and multi-property groups that want the front desk phone plus the operational follow-through (work orders, boards, schedules) without an enterprise contact-center project.
Choose PolyAI if
Large operators with call-center-scale reservation lines, payment-over-phone requirements and IT teams running a formal telephony/contact-center stack.
Sources and fairness
This page is written by Lance. Every PolyAI claim above comes from its public pages, checked 2026-08. Where a capability is not publicly documented, the table says so instead of guessing. If something here is out of date, email founders@lance.live and we will correct it.
Questions hotels ask about the two
Is PolyAI only for big hotel chains?
- PolyAI positions its assistants for enterprise scale, hundreds of sites, central reservation lines, casino resorts, with pricing by request. Lance deploys property by property in days on the hotel's existing PBX.
Can Lance take payments over the phone like PolyAI?
- No, by design. Lance never handles cardholder data; payment requests stay in your own PCI environment. PolyAI states it processes payments over the phone and lists PCI DSS.
Which is better for housekeeping and maintenance?
- Lance turns call requests into tracked work orders on the same platform that runs the housekeeping board, preventive maintenance and schedules. PolyAI can initiate housekeeping requests; it does not offer hotel operations tooling.
“Hotels have operated the same way for decades. Lance changed that.”
See it on your own phone line.
The fastest comparison is a demo on your FAQs, your departments and your PBX. Bring the vendor questions from the buyer's guide.
